TURANDOT • MUNICH OPERA FESTIVAL

★★★★★★

REVIEW TURANDOT, MUNICH: A VISUAL FEAST OF EXCEPTIONAL CALIBRE

Opera as a feast for the senses. Opera as a cornucopia of images, movement, technology and imagination. Such is the Bavarian State Opera’s utterly phenomenal Turandot.

Carlus Padrissa and the Catalan theatre collective La Fura dels Baus have created a production that feels as though it comes from the future. It is opera as total theatre.

On stage, aerial acrobats soar through the space. Skaters carve tracks across the ice. Breakdancers, video projections, gigantic installations, advertising hoardings, futuristic cityscapes and crowds in meticulously choreographed formations merge into one enormous visual torrent.

Along the way, the audience are even handed out 3D glasses, so that in brief sequences the performance almost bursts through the edge of the stage and spills out into the auditorium. I promise you: this Turandot has it all.

Whilst some critics have argued that La Fura dels Baus goes too far in its penchant for spectacle, I find it hard to see the point of that objection. On the contrary. Puccini’s music itself was written with maximum effect in mind. Grand emotions, grand choruses, grand melodies. He was the king of musicals in his day. I honestly believe that Puccini would have loved this unrestrained opulence.

The interesting thing is that all this scenic extravagance never undermines the work. Puccini’s music stands firm. It surges through the scenes with incredible power.

The production’s most ingenious touch, however, is the ending. In Munich, they have chosen to end the opera at the point where Puccini himself died whilst working on the score. After Liù’s heart-rending death, the curtain falls. No Alfano finale. (The ‘official completion of the work after Puccini’s death.’) No sudden redemption. No problematic transformation of love. Only silence. Only loss. Only darkness.

The abrupt ending lends the work an unexpected weight. Suddenly, Turandot is no longer the story of love’s triumph, but of its price. Liù becomes the opera’s true centre, and, paradoxically, the unfinished ending feels more authentic than the official one.

Death delivers the final blow. As you leave the National Theatre after nearly three hours of sensory overload, the images are still etched on your retina: the collapsed ice palaces, the luminous megacities, the gigantic crowds and the icy princess, trapped in her own prison of power and fear.

This Turandot is neither subtle nor modest. I acknowledge that puritanical experts and gloomy opera fans may have a point in their criticism of this exceptionally grand opera production.

But it is quite simply spectacular beyond all bounds. You won’t be bored for a single second. Does it matter?

This repertoire production is actually fifteen years old and has become a modern classic in Munich; for its stage visuals alone, it’s worth the journey. One of Europe’s most overwhelming opera experiences. Six stars without hesitation.

PS. The attentive reader will recall that I reviewed a spectacular Turandot from Valencia a few weeks ago. That production, too, springs from the La Fura dels Baus universe. But the similarity is actually less than one might think.

Both productions replace traditional imperial China with futuristic visual worlds dominated by video projections, enormous stage machinery and a visual language closer to science fiction than to an oriental fairy tale. In both, we encounter gigantic crowds, choreographed mass scenes and an almost cinematic use of light and technology.

But whilst Àlex Ollé’s Valencia production unfolds in a dark, monumental and claustrophobic universe of bridges, staircases, ramps and labyrinthine steel structures, Carlus Padrissa in Munich unfolds a far more flamboyant vision. Here, luminous skyscrapers rise from the stage floor, enormous LED screens flash like advertising pillars in Shanghai, and a giant eye, a moon disc and a gong seem to constantly shift their identity before the audience. The stage space is in constant motion and transformation. The Munich version is also populated by aerial acrobats, floating bodies, skaters and dancers who almost seem to float through the stage scenes. The crowds do not merely act as a chorus, but as living architecture. Several scenes feel more like gigantic living installations than traditional opera staging. 

The crucial difference, however, lies in the narrative.

In Valencia, the entire story is told right up to Alfano’s completed finale. Turandot’s transformation from an unapproachable ruler into a human being is the aim and meaning of the production.

In Munich, by contrast, the narrative ends where Puccini died. Liù’s sacrifice becomes the climax of the work, whilst Turandot’s redemption never materialises. The ice-cold princess remains an unsolved enigma, surrounded by crumbling ice palaces, luminous megacities and a society caught between technology and myth.

Whereas Valencia seeks to bring the story to a conclusion, Munich insists on its unresolved mystery. This makes the two Turandot productions sister works – but not twins.